The main legal point established in the judgment is that the President of the Municipal Council cannot be treated as a Councillor and that the total number of elected Councillors available on the date of signing the proposal should be considered for the purposes of recall under Section 47 of the Madhya Pradesh Municipalities Act, 1961.

K.K. Trivedi, J.

1. This writ petition take exception to the order dated 09.09.2014 passed by the respondent No. 2 as also the final order dated 25.09.2014 passed by the respondent No. 1 accepting the proposal made for recall of the petitioner as President of the Municipal Council, Harda. Undisputedly the petitioner was elected as President of the said Municipal Council and such election was notified in the year 2011. The Municipal Council, Harda consists of 30 wards and 30 members have been elected as Councillors. Such notification of election was issued on 9th November, 2011 in the M.P. Gazette (Extraordinary).

2. It is the contention of the petitioner that in terms of Section 47 of the Madhya Pradesh Municipalities Act, 1961 (herein after referred to as 'Act'), a proposal was made by 23 Councillors before the Collector for recall of the petitioner. The fact stated in the said application/proposal was that the manner of working of the petitioner was not in the interest of the Municipal Council and, therefore, such proposal was made. It is contended by the petitioner that in fact the strength of 23 elected Councillors was short of three-fourth elected Councillors of the Municipal Council and, therefore, the proposal was liable to be rejected. When the petitioner came to know about this fact that such proposal was made, she immediately made an objection on 08.09.2014 but the objection was not looked into. No document was made available to the petitioner even when a demand was made and matter was referred to the State Government. Without there being any justified reason or complete satisfaction of the authorities, the matter was referred to the State Election Commission to take action under Section 47(3) of the Act. That being so, the order passed in that respect was liable to be quashed. Hence this petition has been filed by the petitioner.

3. The writ petition was entertained and interim stay was granted to the petitioner to the effect that the Election Commission may take all steps and process for recall but the notification of the date of election shall not be issued till the next date of hearing.

4. A return has been filed by the respondents No. 1 and 2 contending inter alia that the procedure as laid-down under Section 47 of the Act was complied with and after being satisfied with the proposal made by the Councillors, the Collector has forwarded the same to the State Government, which has been further sent to the State Election Commission to take action in accordance to law. In fact the voting has to be done on the proposal so made in the matter of recall of the petitioner and in case the votes are cast against the petitioner and in favour of proposal of recall then only the petitioner would be liable to vacate the seat of the President of Municipal Council. It is contended that no wrong has been committed by the respondents in doing so and as such the writ petition is liable to be dismissed.

5. The intervenors have filed applications seeking permission to intervene in the writ petition to oppose the same. I.A. No. 12964/2014 has been filed by one Lokesh Rao, son of Shri Ram Chandra Rao, an elected Councillor of Municipal Council, Harda to oppose the prayer made by the petitioner in the writ petition and I.A. No. 13970/2014 has been filed by Dilawar Khan, son of Majid Khan, Councillor of Municipal Council, Harda, for the same purpose. The applications for intervention have been treated as reply of the aforesaid intervenors and they are also granted permission to be heard. Such intervenors were also heard at the time of final hearing. The contentions raised by the intervenors are that since there were 30 elected Councillors of Municipal Council, Harda, three-fourth of the same would be 22.5, rounding of which would mean 23 and, therefore, if 23 Councillors have signed the proposal for recall of the petitioner, the same is in accordance to the provisions of Section 47 of the Act. Therefore, proposal has rightly been ac